36: 4 Benefits of Having a Future Vision

Speaker1: [00:00:08] You are listening to the Time to level up podcast, I'm your host business life coach, Andrea Libros. I helped women in business commit to their own growth personally and professionally. Each week I'll bring you strategies to help you think clearly, gain confidence, make your time productive, turn every obstacle into an opportunity, and finally overcome the overwhelmed so that you can make money and manage life. Let's create a plan so you have a profitable business, successful career, and best of all, live with unapologetic ambition. Are you ready to drop the drama and figure out the how? In order to reach your goals, you're in the right place. It's time to level up.

[00:00:57] Let's do this.

Speaker1: [00:01:05] Hello, my time to level up listeners, and welcome back to the podcast. So today I just wanted to start out by sharing

Speaker2: [00:01:16] What my client, Sherri, had to say

Speaker3: [00:01:20] About our Deep Dove

Speaker2: [00:01:23] Vip day,

Speaker3: [00:01:24] Which

Speaker2: [00:01:24] We did a couple of weeks ago. And I want to start up by sharing this with you, because what we're going to talk about today when I really get into the podcast

Speaker3: [00:01:33] Is

Speaker2: [00:01:35] Creating a vision and having a vision as a tool to help you make decisions

Speaker3: [00:01:43] And manage

Speaker2: [00:01:43] Your energy and manage your

Speaker3: [00:01:45] Time. And I really could title today's podcast episode, a whole host of things.

Speaker2: [00:01:51] And I'm not even sure what I'm going to decide in the end because I usually don't decide the title until my podcast

Speaker3: [00:01:58] Producer edits it.

Speaker2: [00:02:00] And she comes back to me and she says, Hey, here are three options for the

Speaker3: [00:02:04] Title of this

Speaker2: [00:02:06] Episode that I came

Speaker3: [00:02:07] Up with. This is how

Speaker2: [00:02:08] It struck me when I was listening. What do you think? So I'm not sure what the title will be, but I probably can title this episode a whole bunch of things. But what inspired me

Speaker3: [00:02:18] To do today's

Speaker2: [00:02:20] Episode was my conversation with Sherri, but also a conversation I had with a client last week about vision. And Sherri and I just did a deep dove session together. And you're going to hear from her in a couple podcasts from now. But here's what she said. She said, Andrea previously coached me through a really rough patch of both writer's

Speaker3: [00:02:40] Block and a geographic

Speaker2: [00:02:42] Move that wasn't working for my family. The frequent sessions were extremely helpful. And ultimately, I was delighted with both the personal and professional progress she helped to seed.

Speaker3: [00:02:53] So nearly

Speaker2: [00:02:55] Two years later, which is now when I realized some of my old thought patterns and habits were creeping back in, I didn't hesitate to reach out

Speaker3: [00:03:03] To her.

Speaker2: [00:03:04] Andrea recommended a deep

Speaker3: [00:03:05] Dove VIP day. I am so glad

Speaker2: [00:03:08] That she did. I could already tell. By the time I'd worked my way through the pre meeting questionnaire that there were several areas of both my work and personal life that needed addressing and a lot more

Speaker3: [00:03:19] Detail than a single

Speaker2: [00:03:21] Check in session could possibly have provided. The half day format was perfectly suited to doing that kind of work. I left my time with Andrea, with a vision, with an actionable plan, with a lot more confidence in my ability to

Speaker3: [00:03:36] Execute it and specific tactics to

Speaker2: [00:03:38] Avoid getting stuck. It was exactly what I needed.

Speaker3: [00:03:42] I have incredibly

Speaker2: [00:03:43] Supportive family and friends, as well as a vibrant, engaged, professional network. But none of that could possibly substitute

Speaker3: [00:03:51] For Andrea and

Speaker2: [00:03:52] I taking the time to really dig in, figure out the vision and problem solve with me. She was excellent at providing objective, thoughtful feedback and offering concrete, proven strategies based on her understanding

Speaker3: [00:04:06] Of what will

Speaker2: [00:04:07] Work

Speaker3: [00:04:08] For me. Her insights,

Speaker2: [00:04:09] Informed by a long term client relationship, were invaluable. Planning out my ambitious goals for the next year, as it aligns with my vision could have felt overwhelming.

Speaker3: [00:04:21] But instead,

Speaker2: [00:04:22] I'm energized and excited. This was an ideal investment in my own growth. OK, so which Sherri and I did that day was we eliminated what I want to call decision fatigue. OK, so she was expending a lot of mental energy on trying to figure out what her next year and we kind of were specifically talking the school year was going to look like

Speaker3: [00:04:53] And she is someone who I have I'm going to give her credit.

Speaker2: [00:04:56] She is someone who takes care of herself. She, I'm going to guess gets enough sleep because my first two things are

Speaker3: [00:05:02] Always, hey, if you're feeling like

Speaker2: [00:05:06] Overwhelmed and confused, are you getting enough sleep and are you feeling your body with the right foods? So, yes, but the third

Speaker3: [00:05:13] Thing is, how are you

Speaker2: [00:05:16] Spending your mental energy and do you need to conserve mental

Speaker3: [00:05:20] Energy by making

Speaker2: [00:05:22] Fewer decisions? Now, we all know that too many decisions can zap our mental energy. However. You know, I'm all about statistics, you know, we have sixty thousand thoughts per day, I'm sure I've heard that statistic with you before. But did you know also that we make

Speaker3: [00:05:42] Thirty five thousand

Speaker2: [00:05:44] Decisions each day in most of those decisions we're not even conscious of? This study by Cornell showed that we make two hundred and twenty six decisions on food alone. So what are these decisions about when, where, with whom, how much, how many? OK, just think about when you're talking with your spouse about where you might want to go out to eat. That's probably 30 decisions right there. So when you are trying to grow both personally and professionally,

Speaker3: [00:06:18] A really

Speaker2: [00:06:19] Big challenge is decision fatigue. And I've experienced some of this myself. What do we do with that? Well, one of the things I think we can do is to stop, literally stop. I know this sounds crazy, but stop.

Speaker3: [00:06:36] And try to analyze

Speaker2: [00:06:38] What we are envisioning our next year to be, and by doing that,

Speaker3: [00:06:45] We can cut out a lot of that

Speaker2: [00:06:48] Decision fatigue. So I want to share with you

Speaker3: [00:06:53] Some of the benefits

Speaker2: [00:06:55] Of creating this vision, which Sherri and I did. So we created her vision. And then in this deep dove day after we had created the vision, we worked and kind of doubled down

Speaker3: [00:07:07] On a plan

Speaker2: [00:07:08] And actionable plan and some specific tactics. But we started with the vision. OK, now here's the thing. Last week, one of my clients said I brought up creating a vision and I said, what is your vision? And she said to me, I don't have a vision. And I know this sounds horrible, but I just don't. And I know you've mentioned it before, but I don't have a vision. And I said,

Speaker3: [00:07:31] Well, why why do you think

Speaker2: [00:07:32] That is? In which she said

Speaker3: [00:07:35] Is because I always know that I will

Speaker2: [00:07:38] Probably be able to reach the goal. So she brought in that word goal when we were talking about vision, which kind of was red flag number one for me. But I always know that I will reach the goal and that I will just kind of blow by it and I'll just go on to the next thing. So is it really worth

Speaker3: [00:07:56] Taking the time to have the vision?

Speaker2: [00:07:59] And what I realized is that she was thinking about vision as being something

Speaker3: [00:08:07] Super specific, which it isn't,

Speaker2: [00:08:11] It isn't. So when I say vision, I want you to picture this as a painting on a wall. All right. Now go back to your art history class. I took an art history class in college. I hope you did, too. That was definitely

Speaker3: [00:08:24] One credit worthwhile. Go back to

Speaker2: [00:08:27] The art history

Speaker3: [00:08:28] Class and

Speaker2: [00:08:29] Picture those paintings by Monet. OK, now remember, those monies were not there, kind of fuzzy. They were a little bit fuzzy. And there's a one in particular that I remember and I had it

Speaker3: [00:08:41] And a poster in my on my bedroom wall

Speaker2: [00:08:43] When I was growing up. I think it was from the Museum

Speaker3: [00:08:46] Of Fine Art in Boston,

Speaker2: [00:08:48] The poster. So Monet had this one specific painting, the garden and the garden was kind of a

Speaker3: [00:08:55] Lot of brush

Speaker2: [00:08:56] Strokes. It was all color. There were no

Speaker3: [00:09:00] Specific defined

Speaker2: [00:09:03] Lines.

Speaker3: [00:09:04] But even

Speaker2: [00:09:05] When you looked at that painting, that piece of art, that garden,

Speaker3: [00:09:09] You

Speaker2: [00:09:09] Could envision what it looked like, you could envision what it felt like, you could envision what you might be doing in it. OK, so that Monet's garden is really just a vision, it is not specific, a vision is not a paint by No. Hey, remember the paint by numbers where you would put specific colors into

Speaker3: [00:09:35] Specific boxes, like

Speaker2: [00:09:37] All the ones were blue and all the twos were red, a vision is not that. That's what my client was thinking about last week. She was thinking that this vision was going to be a specific paint by number.

Speaker3: [00:09:48] And I think, you know, we all want that specific

Speaker2: [00:09:52] Paint by number. But before we can get to the paint by number, which is more kind of, I would say more of like an annual plan, you need to have this vision, OK, which is literally a picture on the wall. Another way I described it, which I think might be helpful, another analogy I love analogies is picture you planning a party. OK, and it is going to be a birthday party and it is going to be a summer birthday party and it's going to be for an adult. OK, maybe it's a fiftieth birthday party. I tend to be going to a lot of those

Speaker3: [00:10:29] In the summer.

Speaker2: [00:10:31] Ok, for adults, so when you go into party city. OK, so you drive over to Party

Speaker3: [00:10:37] City, you've got the date

Speaker2: [00:10:39] In mind, you know who the guest of honor is. You can picture it's going to be in July. When you walk into Party City,

Speaker3: [00:10:47] You have

Speaker2: [00:10:48] In your head a vision of the party. You don't know exactly what it's going to look like. You don't know exactly who's going to show up. You don't even know what exactly is going to be on the menu. You don't know the

Speaker3: [00:11:00] Weather, OK, but

Speaker2: [00:11:01] You know, it's not December, so you are not going to the Christmas

Speaker3: [00:11:07] Aisle in Party

Speaker2: [00:11:08] City. You are not doing that. You're going to the aisle that has maybe bright colors, tropical colors. Maybe you're going to choose the yellow napkins. You're not going to choose the ones with snowflakes in the reason you're not picking the snowflakes or choosing the snowflake napkins is because it doesn't

Speaker3: [00:11:28] Align with your

Speaker2: [00:11:30] Vision of the party. OK, and you almost don't know what this party is going to turn out to be until it's happening. And then, you know. That when you're having a good time, it's feeling good, you can envision all that, but you don't know the specifics until it happens.

Speaker3: [00:11:50] So when I

Speaker2: [00:11:51] Talk about creating a vision and having a vision help eliminate decision fatigue, it's just that you're not going to the Christmas aisle. You're just going to go to the isle with the bright colored napkins.

Speaker3: [00:12:07] It is not

Speaker2: [00:12:09] A paint by number either. With very specific

Speaker3: [00:12:13] Things, it's somewhere

Speaker2: [00:12:14] In the middle, it's like Monet's garden. So what I've found with my clients is that creating this

Speaker3: [00:12:21] Vision usually

Speaker2: [00:12:23] Goes to the bottom of the list because all of the day to day stuff, that's what takes up our

Speaker3: [00:12:29] Time. And this vision

Speaker2: [00:12:30] Creation

Speaker3: [00:12:31] Project gets pushed to the

Speaker2: [00:12:33] Bottom of the list. So when Sheri called me and said, hey, I'm kind of going back into some of my old patterns, I really want to figure out what my next year is going to look like. My kids are definitely getting more independent. She's an author, so she wanted to publish another book. They're finally all settled into their new house. There's no covid, OK. She knew, however, that she was not going to take a day

Speaker3: [00:13:02] In the summer to

Speaker2: [00:13:04] Sit down and create her own vision. She needed someone to help guide her, to help brainstorm, to help

Speaker3: [00:13:12] Picture it with her, because we see

Speaker2: [00:13:15] This vision as kind of being optional.

Speaker3: [00:13:19] Is it a need or want?

Speaker2: [00:13:21] Is it a must have or what? Is it a nice to have? I'm going to argue it's a must have, but our brain can tell us, oh, it's just nice to have. So when I said to Sherri, I think we need to create the vision and I'll help you. She was all in.

Speaker3: [00:13:37] How are you? I want you to ask

Speaker2: [00:13:39] Yourself, do you want to have a vision? OK, and how are you going to get there? Now, let's think about this. U.S. presidents who have had visions and I think they'd probably argue they had visions,

Speaker3: [00:13:54] But some had visions that were more defined

Speaker2: [00:13:56] Or more painted than

Speaker3: [00:13:58] Others. Those are the

Speaker2: [00:14:00] Ones that are effective. All effective leaders in the world have visions. And when a business fails or when an economy fails, most of the time it's because

Speaker3: [00:14:12] They don't have

Speaker2: [00:14:13] A vision. So here are four benefits of you having a vision. You ready? Here's the meat of this. A vision prepares you to meet your future. A vision prepares you to meet your future because neither you nor your career or your business is static. There's always changes occurring. There are changes in our economy. There are changes in our family dynamics. There are changes in your health right. In a way to stay on track, regardless of all of those external things. Think covid

Speaker3: [00:14:57] Is to

Speaker2: [00:14:57] Have a vision. Now, your mission, people ask, what's the difference between mission and vision? Your mission may change. Your day to day may change. But if you have a vision, you can really stay on track to create the future you're looking for. Right? Who led us technology wise into the future in the U.S.? Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, they had visions. They had visions. But without a vision, you were unprepared for all of these potential changes and disruptions that could occur. And the best way to prepare for the future is to not stay in passive action,

Speaker3: [00:15:48] But to move into a

Speaker2: [00:15:51] Day of action or massive action, as I like to call

Speaker3: [00:15:54] It.

Speaker2: [00:15:54] And when you have a vision, you can go in quickly and easily into that massive action versus staying in the passive. OK, now your vision can change,

Speaker3: [00:16:08] And I often

Speaker2: [00:16:09] Recommend that you have a vision that's probably three to 10 years out because then it allows you to create those goals. So going back to my client who said, no, I don't want to create a vision because I'll just meet the goal. Now, the vision isn't the goal. The goals are formed from the vision.

Speaker3: [00:16:26] But when you

Speaker2: [00:16:27] Have a vision, you can easily adapt and change. And we do revisit this vision every year and make sure that it's we're still in agreement with it.

Speaker3: [00:16:35] But no one is.

Speaker2: [00:16:37] The vision can help you meet your future. OK, number two, you've probably heard me talk about turning obstacles into opportunities, and when you have a vision, it can help you identify the right opportunities because it's going to keep you

Speaker3: [00:16:57] On track and

Speaker2: [00:16:58] Your opportunities as you select what's an opportunity and what's not, you're going to have kind of a reference point

Speaker3: [00:17:05] And decide, does this

Speaker2: [00:17:06] Opportunity align with my vision?

Speaker3: [00:17:10] Is it in the

Speaker2: [00:17:10] Same for having like a graph? Is this opportunity along the continuum of my vision, or is it an outlying dot on the graph right now? A lot of us

Speaker3: [00:17:27] Can get sidetracked

Speaker2: [00:17:29] Or go after what I call these shiny

Speaker3: [00:17:31] Objects or squirrels.

Speaker2: [00:17:33] Right. How many of you have said, oh, my gosh, I have shiny object syndrome or I have ADHD, I just can't stay on track. But if you have a vision, it helps you stay aligned with what the right opportunities are in those shiny objects in those squirrels are less frequent. So when someone comes up to you and this happens to me and they say, hey, for example, for me, it's a Andrea, will you speak at X, Y and Z event? I really have to check in with myself before I say yes. Does this event or does this audience align with my vision of who I want to serve in my coaching practice? Or when someone says, hey, will you collaborate on this with me? I can check in and say, hey, does this opportunity align with my vision

Speaker3: [00:18:22] Of what

Speaker2: [00:18:22] I want to offer my clients? So it's easy. It makes it super easy to

Speaker3: [00:18:27] Identify what's a real

Speaker2: [00:18:29] Opportunity versus what's just a good idea, what's a great idea versus a good idea. And it's a it helps you measure and allows you to either say yes or no. It's really easy to say no to something.

Speaker3: [00:18:44] I've never

Speaker2: [00:18:45] Done this. And I say, hey, this just doesn't align with the direction my business is going in the next few years. It's not part of my vision. Makes it super easy and it makes you more

Speaker3: [00:18:57] Of an innovator,

Speaker2: [00:18:59] More of a creator and a future thinker than just a preserver of the past. So it helps you move

Speaker3: [00:19:05] In to creation with the right opportunities versus just

Speaker2: [00:19:10] Staying stuck where you

Speaker3: [00:19:12] Are. But as you see

Speaker2: [00:19:13] The opportunities, you're going to be able to identify this aligns with my vision or this does it. So, number two, as a recap, is it helps you identify the right opportunities. It helps you turn those obstacles into opportunities that align with your vision. Third thing here kind of comes with words like, yeah, but how do you make this vision a reality? What do you need to do? And I'm going to do it. Another podcast

Speaker3: [00:19:38] On that.

Speaker2: [00:19:38] But your vision helps you. Focus, it sharpens your execution. OK, so if you have a team, for example, and you say

Speaker3: [00:19:52] To me and I've heard this,

Speaker2: [00:19:55] Maybe even though if you're listening, I'm talking to you,

Speaker3: [00:19:58] Hey, I can't

Speaker2: [00:19:59] Get my team to all be on board. It's really hard.

Speaker3: [00:20:03] It's really hard.

Speaker2: [00:20:04] Everybody needs to stay on board. I wish they were working harder.

Speaker3: [00:20:08] I wish they were all in

Speaker2: [00:20:11] And coming up. Or maybe we've already listened to it. Let's see. In episode number thirty five, when you just listened to last week

Speaker3: [00:20:21] When I

Speaker2: [00:20:22] Was talking to Maria Paige, this is kind of what happened to them and their organization. We had to create a

Speaker3: [00:20:28] Vision that allowed

Speaker2: [00:20:29] Them to all sharpen their focus or really, truly focus. It made all of the execution, their day to date, purposeful. The vision gave them the thinking behind the action.

Speaker3: [00:20:46] So think back to my Eisenhauer

Speaker2: [00:20:49] Matrix that I sometimes referred to where we are either doing, planning, delegating or eliminating, if we're just stuck in that do box, if we're just acting, acting, acting,

Speaker3: [00:20:59] When we're taking

Speaker2: [00:21:00] Action, taking action, taking action, it's probably not propelling us forward

Speaker3: [00:21:05] Because we haven't done thinking.

Speaker2: [00:21:08] There's no thinking in the doing.

Speaker3: [00:21:10] If we add thinking to the doing, which is more of a

Speaker2: [00:21:14] Plan, the plan is going to align with our vision. So it makes things purposeful. And again, like Maria was talking

Speaker3: [00:21:26] About, they needed to

Speaker2: [00:21:28] Be more productive, to be more efficient, to keep up with demands of business, but

Speaker3: [00:21:34] Are you productive

Speaker2: [00:21:36] Or were they productive in the moving things forward or were they just productive in a day to day before we worked together and created their vision? They were productive in just a day to day manner, not a moving forward manner. So vision helps you execute in a purposeful way. It sharpens your focus.

Speaker3: [00:21:59] And having a vision also

Speaker2: [00:22:02] Energizes your team because then they know their actions are meaningful. It keeps them energized and engaged. It gives meaning to Monday. It eliminates those Sunday night blues because everybody is aligned with the vision wanting to move things forward. OK, so no, for the last piece

Speaker3: [00:22:23] Is a

Speaker2: [00:22:24] Vision. It keeps you from

Speaker3: [00:22:26] Quitting too

Speaker2: [00:22:27] Soon. So last week, working

Speaker3: [00:22:30] With a client, I've only been working together

Speaker2: [00:22:32] For about a month and we have been working on creating a vision for her business and her business does involve employees. OK, so she's got a team. And she said to me, Andrea, the work we've been doing, I totally see the benefit. I just don't necessarily see the value yet.

Speaker3: [00:22:49] So what I did is I brought

Speaker2: [00:22:51] Her back to the vision. I brought her back to her vision of being able to go to her kids soccer games and leave work at three thirty. I brought her back to the vision. Of not having to be on every job, I brought her back to the vision of having other people do all of the consults, I brought her back to the

Speaker3: [00:23:15] Vision of her

Speaker2: [00:23:16] Working on the parts of the business that she wants to work on. I brought her back to the vision of retiring her husband so that he doesn't have to travel. And once we went back to that vision. She saw how all the work we've been doing. Is worth it and that maybe the benefit isn't in the present, maybe the benefit is 60 90. The year out,

Speaker3: [00:23:44] But right now it's making

Speaker2: [00:23:47] Having that vision is making

Speaker3: [00:23:48] Through the

Speaker2: [00:23:49] Slogging through the mud worth it? It is helping you stick it out. When you have a vision, it keeps you from quitting. So when you see as you start to work through visions and start to execute on the vision, sometimes right in the beginning you're not feeling it. But at having that vision, it gives you a reason to keep working, to make things better. And if you have this vision

Speaker3: [00:24:17] And you can express that

Speaker2: [00:24:19] Passion to your team. They will get excited. Right, the vision. Is exciting and it keeps the team again in line. So number four is vision keeps you from quitting too soon. OK. Here's my invitation, here's my coach with me. Coach with me go to that future, you go to that future, you what does she look like? What does she feel like, what is she doing, what is she thinking? What is

Speaker3: [00:25:02] Your version

Speaker2: [00:25:03] Of Monet's Garden? That future garden. Go there. Start painting your picture, not your paint

Speaker3: [00:25:14] By number, but painting

Speaker2: [00:25:16] Your landscape. Start walking those aisles of parties city and envisioning what you want your celebration to look like,

Speaker3: [00:25:28] If you can start to adopt

Speaker2: [00:25:30] This kind of visionary thinking into your personal and professional life, you are going to be so much better. You're going to feel better, you're going to feel energized, you're not going to want to quit anything, you're going to have a focus. This is kind of the secret sauce. My friends having a clear vision is the secret sauce. So I am committed to helping you create a vision. Who is your coach? Who's going to coach you to

Speaker3: [00:26:08] Create the vision

Speaker2: [00:26:10] If you don't have a coach, I would be honored to be that coach, even just for a day, just for a deep dove VIP day in. This is the kind of day where we kind of are flinging paint brushes across the room where we are crafting. Who is going to be in that vision with you? Who's going to be your board of directors? Who's going to come alongside you? How do you want to feel? So I invite you to imagine how different would things be for you, how different would things feel for you? How different would your results

Speaker3: [00:26:51] Be if you weren't

Speaker2: [00:26:53] Stuck in decision fatigue, if you weren't stressing about things and if you gave yourself the tools or the vision so that following through

Speaker3: [00:27:05] Would be easy,

Speaker2: [00:27:06] You wouldn't be resisting, maybe even be laughing about things. And you could be able to let yourself move through your days and your weeks and your year. With purpose, so I hope you feel inspired and motivated and able to make the decision for yourself to invest in yourself so that you can create the result you want in your

Speaker3: [00:27:35] Life on

Speaker2: [00:27:36] Purpose and not have to rely on anyone else and not have to have the paint by number. And I invite you to reach out. And if you haven't done so already, let's chat. Let's see if a deep dove VIP day is exactly what you need, just like it was exactly what Sherry needs. And she has agreed to actually do one of these deep dove VIP days every quarter

Speaker3: [00:28:09] Because it was that valuable

Speaker2: [00:28:11] To her, that vision

Speaker3: [00:28:14] That gave her such

Speaker2: [00:28:16] Inspiration and excitement and energized her that she wants to keep doing it. So reach out. Send me an email, Andréa, at Aundrea Libras Dotcom,

Speaker3: [00:28:28] And let's chat next time we talk, I am going to

Speaker2: [00:28:34] Share with you more on this vision. And how to actually do it. OK. Until next time, remember, it's always time for you to level up to up your game to create a vision and look into the future. Have a great week, my friends. See you soon.

Speaker1: [00:29:00] Thanks for tuning in to today's show. If you're ready to commit to personal and professional growth, move forward, make money and manage life. Head to Andrea Libros Dotcom. That's a ndr a l i e be r o. S s dotcom to find out about the ways we can work together until next time. Go level leveland.